On December 9, ZEEKR ushered in the first ZEEKR 001 European owner. This means that ZEEKR has officially started delivery in the European market. According to the plan, ZEEKR will increase the European market to 6 countries in 2024, enter 8 countries in 2025, and cover most of the core countries in Western Europe in 2026.
Automotive is a highly global industry. "If you can't compete globally, it's hard to become a world-class brand. An Conghui, CEO of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology, said that at the beginning of its establishment, ZEEKR positioned itself as a global brand and took the European market as the first stop to go overseas.
Seize the commanding heights of Europe
Europe is the birthplace of ***. Not only Mercedes-Benz, the "inventor of the car", was born here, but also century-old giants such as Volkswagen, BMW, Peugeot, and Citroen. As a long-established market for automobile consumption, Europe has high requirements for imported automobile products, which are not inferior to the North American market. Some industry insiders said with a smile, "Seizing the commanding heights of Europe is also equivalent to conquering North America, and other markets can be easily handled."
Why did ZEEKR choose the extremely difficult Europe for the first stop of "going to sea"?The rapid development of the new energy industry in Europe is the second largest new energy vehicle market after China, and the development potential of new energy vehicles is great, which is of course the reason.
But there is something more important than this, that is, the product strength of ZEEKR. ZEEKR's products are built with global standards from the very beginning, which is enough to meet the strict standards of Europe. Geely Holding Group's industrial base and forward-looking layout in Europe enable ZEEKR to directly reach user needs and pain points, and better understand the European market. ZEEKR has a European engineering R&D team composed of more than 2,000 top engineers from 30 countries in Gothenburg, Sweden, as well as a global design center led by well-known designers.
Each model of ZEEKR has been oriented to global users since the beginning of research and development, and is jointly created by the European team, which meets the needs of local and global users in Europe for vehicle design, handling, safety and other dimensions. It is reported that ZEEKR 001 and ZEEKR X have been customized according to local conditions, which can support map navigation and language interaction in many European countriesIt meets various standards such as e-NCAP and European five-star collision. At the same time, the vehicle has the ability of European OTA.
Taking ZEEKR 001 as an example, as the world's first pure electric vehicle luxury hunting coupe based on Geely's SEA vast intelligent evolution experience architecture, it continues to win the sales championship of 300,000-level pure electric models, and it has the comprehensive advantages of both coupe and SUV, and it only takes 3 to accelerate to 100 kilometers8 seconds, standard high-performance chassis suspension, off-road performance is not inferior to SUV, enough to bring high-quality car experience to European users.
Another compact SUV model, the Zeekr X, is light and luxurious, which is more in line with Europeans' preference for small sports. The model can start from the luxury needs of European urban users, with a compact appearance, a luxurious large flat floor inside, equipped with a cutting-edge security protection system, which can provide users with all-round protection, and supports map navigation in 32 European countries and 9 Chinese languages.
As early as before the delivery in Europe, 111 reporters from 15 countries conducted an 11-day test drive experience of the European version of ZEEKR 001 with a total mileage of nearly 150,000 kilometers. Europe's ** as a whole spoke highly of the excellent handling and luxury atmosphere of ZEEKR 001. In the European market, where the automobile culture is the deepest, it can win the support of so many professional leaders, highlighting the strong product strength advantage of ZEEKR.
The starting price of ZEEKR 001 and ZEEKR x European version is equivalent to about 47 yuan20,000 yuan and 3570,000 yuan, far more than the domestic market. This fully shows that consumers in the European market highly recognize and yearn for the product power of ZEEKR.
Strengthen the leading force of the whole system
If product power is the deep attraction of ZEEKR to target consumers, then the "whole system" is the forward-looking layout of ZEEKR in overseas markets.
ZEEKR's overseas strategy has been systematic from the beginning, and it is the capacity building of the whole industry chain from R&D, production, to sales and service models, which not only has the genes of global brands, but also the export and empowerment of China's new energy vehicle models and new capabilities to overseas markets. An Conghui said.
Different from mobile phones and home appliances, the use environment of automobiles is complex, and supporting facilities and post-service are very important, especially for electric vehicles, where the efficiency of energy replenishment directly determines the user experience. Therefore, from the very beginning, ZEEKR's overseas expansion is a "whole system", including the whole industrial chain such as local R&D, direct sales model, and one-stop service. In other words, ZEEKR brings European users not only global advanced products, but also a full set of marketing and service model experience, so as to establish a new image of Chinese auto brands in overseas markets.
Adhering to the concept of user-centric, ZEEKR firmly adopts the direct sales model in the European market and provides one-stop services, including financial policy support, energy replenishment system, after-sales guarantee and Internet of Vehicles services, to fully meet the needs of users and improve the user experience in an all-round way. At the same time, ZEEKR has reached a number of cooperation agreements with European partners to provide European users with public electric vehicle charging services and financial solutions, all-round leasing business support and insurance services.
Among the new forces in China, if it is said that the understanding and implementation of market regulations and standards in developed countries, ZEEKR should be the most in place. Patents and safety standards are the two core issues for Chinese automobiles exported overseas. With Geely's more than 30 years of industrial accumulation and Lynk & Co's European experience, ZEEKR's understanding of the European market has far exceeded regulations and standards. It can be said that this is also the soft power that ZEEKR can quickly achieve delivery in the European market and open up the situation.
Write at the end
The start of deliveries in Europe is only the first step. With the improvement of overseas sales channels and the support of a variety of financial policies, ZEEKR responds to the uncertainty of market changes with the certainty of its own strength, accelerates its strategy of advancing into Europe, and its central stores cover most of the core countries in Western Europe, which will not take long.
With market-leading product strength and system strength covering the entire industry chain, it is foreseeable that the "born to be global" ZEEKR will continue to refresh the speed of China's new forces going overseas, and become a new benchmark for leading China's new energy vehicles to go overseas while bringing the ultimate intelligent pure electric experience to global users.